Saw chains include cutting links which are connected alternately on the left and right sides of the chain. The cutting links are connected with center drive links and side connecting links by means of linkage rivets.
When work is performed with a saw chain having conventional cutting links, a force component acts on the cutting link in the direction opposite to the movement of the saw chain around the cutter bar when the cutting links penetrate the wood to be cut. This force component causes the cutting link to become raised by tilting about the tilt edge of the rearward foot of the link and, because of the geometry of the cutting link, the cutting link is drawn by its own cutting action into the wood. During this cutting action, the thickness of the cut chip becomes larger as does the magnitude of the force component.
The cutting links which are drawn into the wood require a larger amount of energy during their cutting action so that a correspondingly less amount of energy is available for the remaining cutting links. This leads to an impulse-like, irregular loading of the saw chain as well as to intense vibrations thereby imposing the saw chain and the cutter bar to severe mechanical stress and strain. These disadvantages become ever more intense the larger that the tilt displacement of the cutting edge is above its initial position before entering the wood.
The tilt displacement of the known cutting links is especially large because the rearward tilt edge lies beneath the rearward portion of the cutting tooth and the cutting edge lies approximately at the mid line of the body of the cutting link. As a consequence of the large tilt displacement, the cutting link tilts considerably during the tilting action and penetrates deeply into the wood.